


No Way To Fight (the Cold)

by greyCacophony



Series: No Way [3]
Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: (Pretty much), Character Study, Child Neglect, Emotionally Constipated Henry, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-13
Updated: 2015-07-13
Packaged: 2018-04-09 05:51:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4336334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyCacophony/pseuds/greyCacophony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Henry didn’t know why he thought that taking a walk would be a good idea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Way To Fight (the Cold)

Henry didn’t know why he thought that taking a walk would be a good idea. The freezing wind rushed past him, snow hitting his cheeks at high speeds, chilling him straight to the bone. He didn’t want to stay inside, though. Sometimes walls, no matter how thin they were, made him feel a bit trapped. After wandering in the wild for most of his life, Henry didn’t really like being pinned to one place, even by weather. Unfortunately, Plegia had a desert climate. This was not a desert climate. This was the precise opposite. Henry pulled his furs around him, his back hunched against the roaring winds as he thought.   
  
Henry was not used to having help. He was a soldier of Plegia. He was the most powerful dark mage seen there. He was demented and twisted and terrifying. He was nothing that anyone wanted to associate with, and that was just how he liked it. Sure, sometimes he got lonely, but he also didn’t want to get too close. He thought back to the forest, the sun shining through the leaves. He thought of his wolf, the closest thing he ever had to a mother. He thought of his crows, the ones he ushered south, away from the cold. He thought of the academy where he learned his magic. He thought of his parents. He had always been a little lonely. He was okay with that! Or, at least he had been, sort of. Recently, it had gotten harder to bear.   
  
Logically, he knew what it was. It was Lon’qu. He found himself going to the swordsman again and again, being drawn in by… something. It was odd. Lon’qu was nothing like Henry. He was scowly and rude and quiet and scared of girls. However, there was just something about him. He was always on his own, unless Lissa was dragging him somewhere. Henry recognized that. Sure, Henry had tried to make friends in the Shepherds. He just wasn’t very good at it. The closest he had gotten was Ricken, but Ricken was literally friends with everyone. Frederick hated his guts, Robin was weirded out by him (though he did his best to hide it), even Chrom made little to no more effort to speak to him. It was, to be completely honest, a little disheartening.   
  
Lon’qu was different though. Henry didn’t have to try. He didn’t have to force Lon’qu to accept him, Lon’qu invited him to come forth from the shadows. And even now, long after the shadows had abated, Lon’qu invited him. He invited him to share his stories, invited him to spar, invited him to sit with him at dinner. And today, he invited him to share his warmth. It was odd. Henry had no aversion to physical touch, everyone knew that from the incident with Kellam and the armour, but this was Lon’qu, the Shepherd that Henry was closest to. Sure, he couldn’t help but smile at the offer, but afterwards, he was left to ponder the action in silence, just as he was doing after dinner.   
  
If Henry was honest with himself, he knew that he was pining. It was just that Lon’qu, socially distressed as he was, was strict in his behaviour. He was a proper swordsman, a perfect soldier. Henry was… a Plegian above all of his other flaws. A mentally disturbed Plegian mage who just so happened to be attracted to men and women, who was literally raised by wolves, who had more animal friends than people friends, who loved blood, who dreamed of death. He was nothing Lon’qu would ever want, even if he wasn’t obviously interested in women. The flustered expression, the halted words, the red face every time he was around women consistently reminded Henry of how doomed his love was.   
  
Not only was he a soldier who was in love with another soldier, but he was in love with a straight soldier nonetheless. Why was his life struggle? He thought back to his parents, neglectful until he did something bad, the teachers who were the same way, and then to himself. He no longer knew what was truly right and wrong. He was so used to the wrong choice being the one to garner attention that he wasn’t sure how to act around Lon’qu. If he really messed up, the swordsman would no longer speak to him, and Henry did not want that. All of these emotions were so confusing.   
  
He wished that he could go back to simpler times, him and his wolf in the forest, but even that was destroyed. He didn’t know what he had done to have the world hate him so much. He just didn’t know. So, for a while, he gave up on the world and joined the Plegian ranks. He made a few friends, or something of the sort. He wasn’t sad when they died, so he guessed that they weren’t really friends. But the Shepherds, Lon’qu in particular… Henry would be devastated if they died. It was a new feeling. After those mean villagers had killed his wolf friend, Henry had lost all control, killing them all with no mercy. Would the same happen with the Shepherds? Would he be able to keep himself from harming any of the other Shepherds as collateral?   
  
Henry shuddered at the thought. Sometimes he scared himself with his lack of control. Honestly, he was terrified of losing control around Lon’qu. Everything he did was strict, measured, but in a way that ensured the best results for everyone else, if not himself. Henry had heard tale of him fighting off hordes of bandits and Risen by himself if no one else was around. Henry found himself having to actually try when they sparred, hand to hand not really being his preference. But his physical strength was not the point, it was his strength of will. How could he not look down on Henry for the jumbled heap of emotions that pressed down upon his thoughts whenever the swordsman came by?   
  
A trembling sigh escaped his lips as he pulled his furs closer around him, looking back at the glowing camp with the heavy sense of trepidation pooling in the pit of his stomach. The wind tugged forcefully at his hair and the snowflakes stung like needles on his skin. Somehow, though, the cold felt more like it came from within rather than being the product of outside influences. He was weary, world weary, and wanted to rest, but the world was too cold. There was only one place where he could truly rest his mind, one source of warmth, but Henry was scared. He was so used to being known as the first to speak, the first to stir up trouble, that there was no way that Lon’qu would ever initiate any kind of confession even if he did have something to confess, which he didn’t. Still, the thought lingered in Henry’s mind, sluggish from the cold, but feeling warm nonetheless. His voice, reaching out. _Come back. You are wanted._  
  
The light called to him and his numb feet pulled him back to the Shepherds, a route which he found himself getting more and more used to as his days went on. However, this was the first time that the voice calling him back was not his own. He needed warmth, he thought to himself as he entered his tent and began to change out of his wet clothes, brushed the frost from his skin and hair. He needed warmth, but he would have to get it for himself. He quickly pulled out a dry fur, draping it over the thin blankets on his bedroll before blowing out his candle and tucking himself into bed. Suddenly, the cold could not reach him, the heavy warmth around him comforting yet false.   
  
It was not him, but for tonight it would have to be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry that I haven't finished this sooner and that I've pushed off them getting together for yet another installment. I promise that I'll finish this up in the next part (and maybe do an epilogue. This ended up a lot more introspective than I thought it would. Hmmm....
> 
> A special thank you to shikidixi who spurred me to finally finish this part, and who inspired the setting with her wonderful fic Cold Cuddles! Thanks for pulling me back into the tiny hellhole that is this ship.


End file.
